Eligibility for EB-1C

[viking7]

Hello,

I am a senior manager with a reputed US firm for the past 6 years. I hold an L1-A on an Indian passport but I am currently on an assignment outside the US in a managerial capacity and I expect to return to the US sometime in the third week of December. I have some queries related to GC on which I seek your advice.

(a) What is my eligibility for GC processing under the EB-1C category, especially with respect to the requirement of being employed for one year within the past three years by an overseas affiliate of the company (please see table below for info)? In other words, is the one-year rule applied as continuous or cumulative over the past three year period and do I pass that criteria based on the info below?

Visa-type L1-A (valid until Sep 24 2011)

Date Entered US 11/9/2008

Date Departed US 1/25/2009

# of days outside US 119

Visa-type L1-A

Date Entered US 05/24/2009

Date Departed US 10/10/2009

# of days outside US 173

Visa-type L1-A

Date Entered US 04/01/2010

Date Departed US 07/01/2010

# of days outside US 235

Visa-type L1-A (renewed until Sep 24 2013)

Date Entered US 02/21/2011

Date Departed US 12/24/2011

# of days outside US 352 (based on expected re-entry date of 12/17/2012)

(b) If I am eligible (per the one-year rule), when do you recommend that I submit the GC request? i.e. do I wait out the expiry of my L1-A (say, approx 90 days prior to sep 2013) or do I apply much earlier?

thank you,

Ramit